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Your Questions, Answered

I invited you to ask me anything this week, and you did. Here are my answers to some of your most interesting questions — I only wish I had time to respond to every single one of you!

(Questions have been edited slightly for length and clarity; the original version can be found by clicking on the commenter’s name.)

Q.

Am I wasting my college education studying political science under the belief that our government can be majorly reformed to be able to finally address problems like income inequality, institutional racism and climate change? If so, what should I be doing?

I wouldn’t call studying political science a waste of time, but I would ask you to clarify your goal and expectations. What does “reform” mean in this context, and do you believe any one person, you in this case, can be the agent of said reform? Or, would it be suitable and worthwhile, in your eyes, to be the agent of some change, regardless of the magnitude. Sometimes we don’t have to make the difference in order to make a difference.

Q.

My wife and I were talking at supper tonight and the conversation drifted to discrimination — race-based and income-based. Acknowledging both, which should we prioritize?

To prioritize the two seems an odd impulse. Would the priority go to the one you think has a larger effect on your life? Your community? Our country? And how to completely untangle the two? And what are your measurements?

Q.

I have enjoyed your columns for years; the combination of intelligent commentary, wit and outrage works well considering the times we live in. I wonder how you manage to maintain clarity and composure in the face of stupidity, racism, religious fundamentalism, ignorance and lack of compassion of a large segment of the population. As a psychiatrist, a father and a citizen I am appalled by these aspects of our culture as well as our unwillingness to look to other first world countries for guidance, and our stubborn adherence to outmoded beliefs. How do you keep your spirits up?

Although I often write about issues in America that I find problematic, I’m generally optimistic about America — its people, not its politicians. There is a true can-do spirit in this country, so that people routinely dream big dreams and do big things. And most of the people I meet are good, honest folks doing their best to provide for their family, help their communities and lend a hand to a neighbor. However, our politics have been poisoned and too many of the good folks in this country have thrown up their hands in disgust about what’s happening in Washington. But the paradox is that the more good people recede from politics, the more power nefarious forces have.

Q.

I am a high school English teacher in Bergen County, N.J. Core novels that I teach include “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.” While reading “Mockingbird” this year, we are examining the Trayvon Martin case and plan on reading a series of your editorials on the incident. Yet, I still get the sense that my students believe that racism exists “not in my time, not in my town.” How can I move my students forward in their thinking and what supplemental texts do you think will support this work?

I suggest that you have your students review and debate this video of Toni Morrison discussing racism.

Q.

What are your thoughts on the term “privilege” (like white privilege, hetero privilege, class privilege, cis privilege, etc.) and the phrase “check your privilege?” I’d like to hear what you have to say about this.

I believe that privilege — racial, normative, gendered and moneyed — exists. And, I think that discussions about said privileges and wanting those who benefit from them to acknowledge the benefit, and the luxury of living without deleterious labels, is a valid one. It shouldn’t be about condemning a person for an identity that, in many cases, they were born into, but about giving proper weight and measurement to cultural advantage, and thereby coming to better understand cultural disadvantage.

Q.

Too often race in America is discussed only within the safety of our own communities, and not face to face with the “other.” I have always felt inspired by South Africa’s Truth And Reconciliation Committee and wondered why we can’t do something like that in the U.S. What do you think?

I have heard people suggest this before. While, in spirit, I think it is an honorable idea, I know that practically it will never come to pass. And, I’m not sure about when it would have had maximum effect — during Reconstruction or on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement. That said, the idea of engaging the “other” in honest talk about racial issue is supremely important. We must realize that we are all constrained within the construct of race — we are privileged by it and prohibited by it. And when we understand our own role in that racial construct, we can better empathize with the feeling of others and understand their plight — through validating difference we can find the universal, not what make us “racial-ized” but what makes us human.

Q.

Why is President Obama — a very learned and now experienced president — so much less effective than was anticipated upon his first election?

In many ways this is the kind of question that begs a question — what was your anticipated level of effectiveness? I find that some people — this may include you, but not necessarily — thought that Obama’s election would herald a seismic shift in the way Washington operated (and he fed this belief, I might add). But no one could have changed the country in the way that many expected Obama to, which inevitably leads to some level of disappointment. And, few seem to have predicted the level of obstruction he’d face. Taken together, this has, to some degree, clipped the wings of his presidency.

I prefer not to look at it as a matter of suffering because the Court has lost popularity. I think that the court is making decisions that have a wide impact on our lives and our politics, and people are paying attention. The more people pay attention, the more likely they are to remember how important it is to vote for presidential candidate who would appoint a Supreme Court justice whose views they approve of, assuming the candidate has such an opportunity. (By the way, a Pew Research Center survey issued Tuesday found “favorable views of the Supreme Court are back above 50 percent, having rebounded from historic lows reached in the summer of 2013.” This means that the court is more popular than the president and much more popular than Congress.)

I was working at National Geographic magazine at the time, and was traveling back and forth between Washington and New York. Needless to say that on those trips, I had time on my hand, so I started writing. I didn’t start with the intention to write a book, but rather to write about some scenes from my life and possibly publish them as magazine essays.

But the more I wrote, the more it started to feel like a book, and when I became a columnist — one almost no one had heard of before — I decided that I would in fact expand and shape the writing, into a book, a memoir, which seemed a proper literary introduction to the world.

I just didn’t think that it would take as long as it did.

Q.

What do you think of the phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations?” What do you think of the way it figures in today’s education policies and debates?

I think it’s a fascinating concept and often a true expression of the way some children are treated. I suffered from this as well. At one school, the teacher never expected me to perform, so I didn’t. They even tried to transfer me to a “slow” class, which was full of mostly African-American boys, but my mother protested. I changed schools, and the teachers there expected much of me and I rose to meet those expectations, I was given an IQ test and deemed “gifted” and I graduated the valedictorian of my class.

This is not to say that some children don’t experience structural impediments to educational success, but it is to say that a child who is nurtured and encouraged and challenged by teachers who care about and respect them will often thrive and blossom.

Q.

Your top three books, top three movies and top three music albums of all time, and why?